Ridge Racer was the first PSP game I played when I got it at launch and I couldn't think of a better game to introduce me to the power of the PSP. Truth be told, I never played a Ridge Racer game before or got an idea about how it played but once I started playing this game I was hooked all the way to the end of the Tours.
The graphics are amazing. While the cars may move about a little floaty, there's no denying how cool the sun effects are or the shiny billboards. When you launch a nitrous, the screen has a nice blur round to give it a sense of speed. After being spoilt by Burnout's crazy technical wizardry and dangerous speeds, Ridge Racer felt a bit flat. But that's when the drifts kick in.
Drifting is a joy and it also helps with charging your nitrous. Before you start a race/tour, you get to choose a car with different Drift styles and you'll pick a favourite through time, depending how long and how hard you want to drift. The levels are full of long stretches and cracking out a long drift never gets old. After playing this and playing on Burnout, Burnout's drifts feel mechanically slow compared to Ridge. It's so robust, smooth and helpful that it becomes a crucial tactic to winning the race. Drift round the bend, use the nitrous boost you earned from it, use the speed to drift round another bend and charge another nitrous faster. It works swell.
The World Tour mode will keep you playing to unlock stuff for a good few days but it's usually 3 or 4 tracks that you may or may not have played before and after the tenth or so tour, you'll know the tracks you're playing inside and out. You'll unlock faster and better cars and the odd old Game Trailer for the previous Ridges. The music here is somewhat fitting. The first time you play it, it sounds refreshing and jazzy and suits the style of play Ridge adapts, but after a while, it tends to get annoying. The commentator doesn't really help either, what with his OTT "Whoa, awesome drift!" but it could be worse. At best, Ridge's music is a cool, jazzy collection of good tunes that tend to grate through time.
At the end of the day, Ridge Racer is a fine arcade game and an excellent display of the PSP's power, but it feels somewhat flat when compared to the likes of WipEout and Burnout. It's drifts are unparalelled though, as they are a huge satisfaction when playing the game. But sooner or later, you'll get bored of Ridge and you'll start playing other games in the genre instead. One for a rental perhaps.
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